save my life tonight
by Lady Shaye
Summary: In an AU version to "Our Town," Klaus arrives at Caroline's home and attempts to save her. But she's still hallucinating, and it ends up being something both endearing and maddening. / ALSO, why is there no "crack" genre setting?


A/N: Yeah soooooooo guys remember how Damon hallucinated a bunch after he got bitten? And we totally got no insights into what Caroline would have seen? I sorta incorporated that into this fic, which is set for like right after she got bitten. Good luck reading this stuff all the way through!

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A/N: To be perfectly honest, I don't quite know what this is. One minute it was serious angst, and then it was crack, and then it was humor, and then it was seriousness again, and I don't even know what genre this is anymore, okay. But who cares, because it's Klaroline and it's adorable and perfect and sexy, all right. Right. So. Enjoy?

Pairing: Klaroline

Rating: T

Warning: Um...crack-filled Caroline commentary on Klaus's attempts to save her life? Spoilers for "Our Town."

Summary: In an AU version to "Our Town," Klaus arrives at Caroline's home and attempts to save her. But she's still hallucinating, and it ends up being something both endearing and maddening.

Disclaimer: Seriously. Too crack...this is just too crack...I know some of the things that TVD writers approve of are quite crack-related, but, seriously, guys, this. Just, this. It's too insane. I cannot own TVD. I'm just not that cool, or that sane. :)

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_save my life tonight_ – Brand New, "Millstone"

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Klaus entered the house, taking in this home that Caroline Forbes had grown up in. Well, looked like Little Miss Collateral Damage had grown up middle class and happy enough. There were pictures on the mantle of the sheriff and her daughter, wherein Liz had mostly stayed the same whereas Caroline dealt with braces, new haircuts, longer legs, and other body developments.

It was almost…nice, seeing her grow up in pictures.

There were other photos of mostly the same three young girls. He could recognize Caroline well enough—that blond hair was unmistakable—as well as Elena, and, finally, the witch. Bonnie. Yes, he hadn't dealt with her much, had he? No matter.

His purpose was to heal a girl that deserved a chance to live. A girl he had carelessly condemned to death hours earlier. Which, technically, had been a silly idea at the time, and it was only meant to get him an invite into this home which, upon inspection, wasn't spectacular and yet wasn't cliché either. It had been a stupid plan with fruitful results.

"She's been hallucinating," the sheriff cautioned as she led him up the stairs.

Did she know that her daughter could hear her?

"It's been hitting her senses hard, too," Liz continued, as if sensing his thoughts. "She couldn't even smell the blood bag I brought her until I came in the room. Her hearing is poorer, so she might know we're coming up the stairs but she won't know it's us. As it is, her hallucinations might mean she's not even 'here' right now, mentally."

Liz spoke very technically and coldly, almost stiffly, but he could see the sheriff's lower lip quivering as she tried to hide her fear.

"You'll save her, won't you?"

He smiled, but it was thin-lipped and vague. "That's only if she wants to be saved. It's up to her. But, yes, I will try."

Liz shook her head to ward off oncoming tears—she seemed like a strong woman, and one that wasn't afraid to be in a room with the Original Hybrid—and smiled tightly. "I know my daughter. She wants to live."

He was studying the photos and kindergarten drawings on the walls when he replied distractedly, "Perhaps. One never knows."

"_I_ know," Liz's voice was sharp. "I know my daughter."

He looked over at her smugly, smirking, delighting in the pain and insecurity he could cause once again. It gave him a sense of power, however briefly. "How long did she keep her secret from you? Her vampirism, that is. How much has she told you about her boyfriend that bit her? And how much has she told you about me?"

"I'll admit," Liz said, looking away and sighing, "that my daughter hasn't been the most forthcoming about her life. She's a teenager. And a vampire, which amplifies that. And she's caught up in a lot of things. But I raised her. I _know_ Care. And she'll want to live."

"Perhaps," he repeated, no longer meaning to hurt her but also not wanting to give her false hope. Because the truth of the matter was, some people just couldn't handle it. They couldn't handle living forever. Some people just gave up. And who was he to deny Caroline the right to die when she wanted, if she so chose? He was a lot of things, a lot of _bad_ things specifically—a murderer, a psychopath, and an emotional enigma, to name just a few—but he wasn't going to _make_ her live if she ended up not wanting to do so.

But at the same time, he didn't want to give Liz that truth. Liz seemed too honest. She seemed to already know. But she wasn't going to even _consider_ it. She knew her version of Caroline, and she knew what _that_ little girl would choose, and she was sticking to that reality. And he…admired that. He…_envied_ it.

A mother's love. Such sureness that she knew her child. That she could trust in her child's judgment and decisions. Such blatant _claiming_ of her offspring.

He wondered what that felt like, having never truly known it.

But, no, now was not the time for self-pity. It was time to save this collateral damage, the one whose pain he had inflicted from a distance. He had created her pain and now he would end it with blood, as all things ended around him.

The bedroom door was ajar, hanging wide open. There she was, with slightly wild eyes that were more subdued now than they had been initially, in the beginning of her pain. He could smell vervain in the air and he knew that it had probably been given to her to act as a sedative. Instead, it would only cause her more pain now that she was awake once more, again thirsting for relief but gaining none whatsoever.

"Hello, Caroline," he murmured, walking into the room. Birthday cards were strewn across the nightstand. _Twilight_ was thrown in the faint direction of the trashcan in the corner of the room, which was full of empty blood bags and other silly vampire novellas. "Taking out the trash, are we?"

"It's stupid," Caroline spat, apparently latching on to only the tail end of his introduction, not even giving him a proper hello. But, then, she _was_ technically dying, and she was hallucinating at that. "Those stories are all untrue. I've dated a vampire and a human and a werewolf and none of them work _right_! None of them make me feel like Bella said she did."

He was mildly amused, having spent (wasted) half of a plane trip trying to understand _Twilight_. "I take it you aren't happy with the books now, then."

"They gave me a disadvantage and a twisted perspective," Caroline muttered, mostly to herself. "I was misled." She flipped onto her back, readjusting from her on-her-side position from earlier. "Just like always," she muttered under her breath, apparently either unaware or uncaring of his super-hearing.

Klaus was unsure of how to deal with this. _Obviously._ Rebekah had her fits, of course, but never while hallucinating, dying, and going through boyfriends of various different species. His experience with hysterical teenage girls was extremely underdeveloped. Given with what he was seeing at the present moment…he rather liked it left undeveloped.

She started mumbling something about chocolate covered cherries, the Piccadilly Circus, and some cute leather purse that had been half off on a sale along with her special Miss Mystic Falls discount.

"Misled?" he replied, clinging to the last thing resembling coherency that she'd given him. "So, I suppose you're used to that happening often?"

She turned back onto her side position and glared at him. "Of course," she said. "Come on, don't think I don't know that you asked Tyler to bite me."

"Ah, so there is _something_ in your poison-addled brain that recognizes clarity," he cheerily replied, going for 'amusing.'

She found it rather irritating instead. "Of course," she snorted, "I'm _always_ lucid. Look at me, being rational and completely awake." She leaned back into her pillows with a heavy sigh. "Happy birthday to me," she half-sang. She had a very pretty voice, even though it cracked thanks to the vervain that had probably been forced down her throat instead of injected.

He shook his head. The effects of a werewolf bite on a vampire often led into tragedy, but…well, the firsthand short-term effects were rather comical, in this case. "Are you always this articulate?"

"Absolutely," she beamed cheerfully.

"I suppose you use big words when you're drunk, too," he grunted (more for show than for real effort spent) as he lifted her up from her slack position to rest her head in his lap as he sat next to her fragile fading form.

She flopped listlessly onto his thigh, staring at his jeans as she faced his leg. "Who doesn't?" She got quiet. "You have a nice thigh."

"Um. Thank you."

"You're like a chicken at Bojangles or something with great tasty thighs!" she clapped her hands, giggling girlishly. "I used to love Bojangles all the time. Before blood became my only food group, that is." She gave a mock sigh. "Oh well. I can still eat chicken, more than any human could anyway (and I still don't gain weight, yay, take that, Weight Watchers!), it just isn't as satisfying."

He still didn't know quite how to respond. _Tasty thighs? What has this generation_ _come to, hallucinating or not?_

Just then, things took on a rapid change. She began to struggle, and he could see a dark film cover her light blue eyes, as though she were in a different time and/or place. "Daddy, please stop! Leave me alone!" she whimpered, clawing at the leg she had been complimenting so hilariously and bewilderingly just a few seconds earlier.

The humor of the situation had quickly gone. He could guess enough of the Forbes' reputation for vampire-hating that Caroline's dearest daddy had gone and done something stupid. Well. Perhaps he'd make him pay for that later. Whatever happened, happened. For now, he just had to calm the girl down.

Taking her by the wrists gently, he kissed her forehead to soothe her expression and her actions. "I'm not your father," he said, and wrinkled his nose at the statement. "Ew. I look much too young to be your father anyway. Gross. Anyway, I would never hurt you like he's done."

"You're the reason I'm dying," she pointed out in a rare moment of clarity, before slipping back under the poison's effect and noticing his hands gripping her wrists. "Damon, quit holding me like that," she whined.

_Ah. The annoying one. Stefan's brother, presumptuous, arrogant, and…apparently was once in a relationship with Caroline Forbes that might or might not have been abusive. I could make a Facebook page off of that one._

"I don't like it when you hold me like that, it's too tight," her voice rose to a higher pitch that spoke of intensity and alarm that hid real fright and a lot of experience of such overwhelming fear.

_Damn it, he definitely was abusive. That's it, I'm going to stake him when I get out of this house. IF I get out of this house. And that's a mighty big **if**._

But with the way she was clinging to him now, there was little doubt that he was going to be here for a long while. However, there was a lot of doubt that he would get of this house. Ever. He let her hold him tightly for a moment before pushing her back and catching a glimpse of the angry red bite wound on her neck. "That looks bad," he tsks.

She tried to look down and see it, but only succeeded in looking wobbly and dizzy as her head spun. "Nah, I've had worse," she brushed it off breezily. "Did I tell you about the time that Damon sucked me almost dry? Or when he nearly staked me? Or when—"

"—you'll have to tell me later," Klaus said tersely, eager to stop clenching the bedsheets hard enough to turn his knuckles white. "As it is, I'm going to kill him already. You tell me any more right now and I swear I'll go find him and burn him alive."

She frowned, looking confused. "But you can't do that. Elena won't admit that she likes him," she confided, turning her head childishly to make sure the room was clear and speaking behind her cupped hand, "but I know that she does." He leaned in intently so that she wouldn't give him those intense puppy dog eyes and stick out her lower lip again. He gave into puppy eyes so easily._ Too_ easily, and she'd probably discover that weakness, that vulnerability, of his soon enough. "And if you kill him, she'll be sad. She won't admit it, but she will be. Well, she might admit it. I don't really know. Elena's life kind of revolves around the Salvatores now," she frowned. "And we talk, but not as much as we used to. I don't know what she'd do anymore. Isn't that kind of depressing, when you don't know your own best friend that well anymore?"

Well, not that this wasn't boring him—actually, it was, but it wouldn't do to tell her so, he'd already been called rude too much in the last thousand years—but he had work to get done. "Caroline," he interrupted her before she could start jabbering on again, "do you want to live or not?"

She knitted her eyebrows up at him, confused. "I don't understa—"

"—do you want to live? Past tonight, past tomorrow, for the next fifty years, for the next hundred years, the next thousand? I could help you. I could save you tonight. I could save your life and show you music and cities and art and music and other things, genuine beauty—"

"—your eyes just got all smolder-y, do they do that a lot?"

He hesitates, unsure of what to say to soothe her fevered, poisoned brain (he's starting to doubt in its existence, or at least its working function). "It's part of the natural Original hybrid charm. Aaaaaanyway, as I was saying, do you want to live? Do you want to experience genuine beauty?" He poked at her tacky bracelet for emphasis.

Caroline frowned again and held her wrist as if he had hurt her or something by touching the silver jewelry adorning it. "Of course. Who doesn't?"

Well. Perhaps Liz Forbes knew her daughter after all. _One of us should get to confide in our parents,_ he thought, then banished the pathetic feelings that were rising up once more from the deep bottomless pit of emotions he could not handle. He sent them back down, where they belonged.

It was all quite simple after that, really. She took his blood, furiously attacking his thigh after claiming that his arm "just wasn't chicken-y enough" and getting arterial blood sprayed on her walls and bed. She pulled back, grinning messily with blood staining her teeth, lips, and jaw. "I was right. You got some _damn_ tasty thighs, Niklaus."

He narrowed his eyes, but it was more out of amusement than annoyance. "All right then," he said as the wound began to close up (on the other hand, he'd have to get new jeans, and that just bloody sucked, despite the amazingly sexual response he's received from her digging into his thigh so eagerly), "I think I'll go now, Caroline." His voice was stuck between a mix of exasperation and a fondness for the blonde vampire that had snuck up on him somewhere in-between her Bojangles rant and her unfocused eyes finally settling on him and staying there for the rest of their conversation, even when she was seeing other things.

Caroline grinned up at him and swiped at her mouth, removing most of the blood onto her arm, which she casually wiped on the bed that was already covered in his blood. "Your leg is very tasty, Nik," she said, adopting Rebekah's nickname for him. With anyone else, he would be ready to rip their throat out or at the very least he'd have a murderous look on his face, but from her it felt…nice. It felt good to have a nickname again that wasn't synonymous with "badass" or "creepy" or "murderous Original hybrid that does whatever the hell he wants so you better fear him."

"Thank you," she added as seriousness began to take over her delirious commentating on his tastiness. "For being my healing Bojangles replacement or whatever. For saving my life and yadda yadda yadda."

He grinned, stopping by the doorway just as he turned his head to watch her fall asleep. "Just one thing, Caroline," he whispered, knowing she would hear even in her drowsy state as his blood healed the venom inside of her. Her sense of clarity was clearing up as he spoke. "Promise me you won't go back to that idiot werewolf boyfriend of yours. From what I understand, all he's good for is kissing and sexual activities. I could offer you so many more perks on top of those." He smirked.

"In your dreams," she mumbled as she faceplanted into the pillows, and he disappeared.

_Oh, she has no idea how much she's going to be in my dreams now. There's something very sexy about a hallucinating girl with a thing for my thighs._

Meanwhile, she dreamed of chicken and the taste of jeans and blood in her mouth.

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A/N: Um. So. Yeah. Don't quite know what this is. Only that I apparently now have a thing for crack, and maybe something in my brain just isn't wired or circuited correctly or something. My brain is all fizzy.

Bojangles is a chain of restaurants mostly in the southeast area of the United States. They are most popular for their spicy chicken thighs (I thought that applied with Klaus *cue shudder and sigh*) and other chicken products. _I now need some of their chicken. Just great._

Anyway. So, basically, my newest crack. You know, when I first started on here I never thought I'd write crack. Yet here I am. Pumping it out on a now almost daily basis. This is one of the better ones. Trust me. :)

I don't expect anyone to review this awfulness, this unbetaed mess. But thank you for reading to the bottom. (Unless, of course, you just scrolled down until you got all the way to here. In that case, what are you doing down here? Go up there and read my crack!)

Um. I hope you don't all hate me now. *cowers*


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